


Pipe Dream

by belmione



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: F/F, Mild Sexual Content, Multipairing, Multishipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 02:56:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belmione/pseuds/belmione
Summary: “When it’s too difficult to pretend she never existed because her absence presses too heavily to be ignored, it’s sweeter to pretend she never left and that she’s in another room or to close her eyes and substitute someone else’s presence for Adora.   Sometimes if she doesn’t open them the illusion almost stays.”A look at how Catra and Adora cope with missing each other and with new relationships after Adora defects.  Catradora-centric with Glimmadora and one-sided Scorpiatra.  POV switches from Catra to Adora halfway through.





	Pipe Dream

Catra has always been a little bit imaginative.  Most people don’t know that she’s prone to daydreaming, given to little flights of fancy and wishes that things aren’t as they currently are. 

Of course, she makes a show of playing it off as detachment, as an aloofness that is more lack of interest or investment in the practicalities of this world rather than a true penchant for dreaming.  She can’t blame anyone who would describe her as grounded, if not a little avoidant and moody. 

But dreams for Catra are more than just sweet departures from the things around her.  Fantasies that things are not as they truly are have always meant survival for Catra. That Shadow Weaver, while terrifying, isn’t actually dangerous.  That things aren’t as bad as she thinks. That Adora won’t leave her. Dreams are necessity now more than ever.

Catra does not like to dwell for long on the knowledge that Adora is gone.  When rooms she used to frequent feel like different realities, chasms now that her presence isn’t in them, it’s far easier instead to pretend she never existed.

Or, sometimes, when it’s too difficult to pretend she never existed because her absence presses too heavily to be ignored, it’s sweeter to pretend she never left and that she’s in another room or to close her eyes and substitute someone else’s presence for Adora.   Sometimes if she doesn’t open them the illusion almost stays.

Scorpia’s constant drive to be close to her both grates on Catra and at the same time, she can’t deny that she craves it.  She misses the warmth of someone else in the bed. She misses the knowledge that someone likes and wants her company.

She loves Scorpia for being here and hates her for not being Adora.  She wonders if she’ll ever love anyone without paradoxes, love without any flip side of resentment or hurt.  

At least it’s familiar, though.  At least it makes it easier for her to fall asleep pretending that it’s Adora, this comfort of a love with a chip on its shoulder.

She lets Scorpia be close to her to a point.  She doesn’t love her, but she loves the fact that there is love or at least affection there to deny or take parts of as she wants.  She lets her hug her sometimes. Sometimes she wriggles out of them. She lets her sleep in her bed some nights and others she doesn’t open the door when she knocks.  She lets her give her kisses and closes her eyes and tries to imagine that it’s Adora. Sometimes it works and sometimes they’re too different, kisses that are warm and gentle but too defined by what they’re not to be able to stomach.

Some nights that she’s in her bed, Catra keeps kissing her, asks her in the gasping pauses they take to breathe not to stop.  She’s grateful when she understands and keeps kissing her, along her collarbones and shoulders, across her breasts, between her legs, and she gasps, keeps her eyes shut as tightly as she can get them, and claps a hand over her mouth so she can’t accidentally whimper the wrong name.

Tonight is a night Catra invites her into her bed.  It’s a night that pretending that Adora never existed isn’t working.  She looms too large in her mind, making the hair raise on the back of her neck and giving her this nagging feeling as if she’s forgotten something or as if something is waiting behind her.  

As Scorpia kisses her gently, she thinks about how she has her own room now that she’s force captain.  About how it was supposed to be Adora’s. How, even now, their spaces and paths keep overlapping and things like this, things that remind her of her, won’t leave.   What it would’ve been like to sleep in here with her, quiet, away from prying eyes.

Catra imagines this is still Adora’s room.  She nestles into the pillow she took with her when she moved in here that has all but lost Adora’s scent.  She pretends the flash of blonde hair between her legs is longer and more golden. But the illusion is still a little bit lost threading her hand in shorter-cropped hair and the myriad little ways her mouth feels different as she kisses her there.

Perhaps the only thing that’s consistent, though, is this way that Catra doesn’t seem to be able to fool Scorpia into believing her when she pretends she’s alright.  She never completely fooled Adora either. Almost as soon as Catra thinks that nothing is working tonight, not pretending away Adora’s existence and not pretending that her presence never left, Scorpia stops. 

“Why'd you stop?” Catra huffs, sitting up a little to look at her, even though she thinks she knows the answer.  Scorpia smiles, sheepish, in this way that's not just like Adora but close enough to make Catra want to bury her face in the pillow and never emerge.

“I'll keep going if you want me to. It just didn't seem like you were having a good time-”

She groans.

“Ugh, I'm trying to-”

“Maybe we should stop-”

“If that’s what you want, whatever,” Catra sighs, waving her hand dismissively as she flops back down.

“Well, I’m kinda trying to figure out what you want,” Scorpia continues, dogged if not gentle.

 “Yeah, you and me both.”

 “So…” Scorpia waits to be told what to do and at least that's different enough not to remind her of Adora.  Adora always had this innate direction and purpose to her and an uncanny ability to know what Catra wanted, often before she could articulate it herself. Catra isn't sure if she wants to be reminded of her or not sometimes.  Nothing feels good without thinking of her at the same time that thoughts of her still ache so terribly deeply Catra wonders if she’ll ever be rid of it.

 “Look, I'll cut to the chase,” she sighs, sitting up a little again, despising the fact that Scorpia wants honesty and answers from her that she'd usually like to leave unspoken. Even if it's only fair to tell her. “This,” she gestures between them, “is casual to me. And a way for me to deal, or not deal depending on how you want to look at it, with a lot of shit. So I'm not exactly deeply invested here and I’m not always going to look, I don’t know, into it all the time.  If you can deal with that, then keep going. If you can't, I won't blame you and you can stop.”

 “Yeah, I kinda figured that.  As long as you're fine I don't really care,” she shrugs.  “I can do casual.”

 “Can you?”

 “Of course.  I knew you might be distant after Adora and everything-”

 “Ugh, don’t _do_ that. I hate that.”

 “Hate what?”

 “When people try to figure me out or whatever.  Casual, remember?”

 “Can do,” she grins.  “So, are you good?”

 “Yeah, you can keep going.”

 “You sure? You looked pretty miserable.”

 “I’m not miserable.  Or at least not about what you’re doing.”

 “So you don’t hate it.”

 “Nope,” Catra answers, verging on boredom now.

 “Does it make you feel better?” she asks, hopeful.

 “I don’t really know.  It doesn’t make me feel worse.  But talking about it kinda does, so.”

 “Okay, got it,” she answers, sufficiently assuaged.  Catra would roll her eyes, but the soft warmth of her mouth drowns any further protests.  

 Sometimes, in between this back and forth of trying to forget she existed and trying to forget she ever left, there are brief flashes of memory that aren’t so painful.  The slow and languid kisses Scorpia is giving her become too much and it’s right then that Catra allows herself to remember, for just a moment. Remember that Scorpia is sweet and gentle but that Adora was purposed and perfect in a way that made it difficult for Catra to breathe.  Remember their first hesitant and stolen kisses in the tiny bunk they shared. Remember the first time they touched each other like this, the way Adora’s hands shook a little but she smiled anyway and did her best to mask it. The way Catra was trembling a little too. How Catra couldn’t do anything but cling to her and think it was all so much and too beautiful and too terrifying to be real.   How Adora looked lovelier than Catra had ever seen her, brows arched and mouth softly open and trying her best not to feverishly repeat Catra’s name. How Catra muffled her own cries in the crook of Adora’s neck, right in the place where her neck met her shoulder that smells the most like a person.

 It’s sweet to be able to remember, but the moments right after are always the heaviest.  The newfound knowledge that Adora is still gone crashes down with a gutting calamity.

 Scorpia moves to lie next to her and Catra turns around, back to her, tucking the pillow to her so that it’s half under her head and half pressed to her chest, trying not to think about how it’s losing its scent every day, replaced with her own and little traces of others.

 Scorpia settles behind her, unfettered.  She seems content, even, as she sighs in a peaceful and satisfied way.  It grates on Catra. It all does. She can’t decide what she wants from her or how she feels about anyone anymore.  Scorpia’s happy little sigh and placid presence make her so desperately angry that wants her leave. She wants to lock her out where she can’t get to her, where no one can.  And at the same time the thought of being by herself feels like drowning, a life-threatening urgency and push not to be left behind, an animal compulsion that she can’t shake.

 Scorpia has been patiently dealing with all of it.  With Catra’s snappishness, her simultaneous avoidance and constant need that she can’t seem to quash.  She even lets Catra do this. Ask her to kiss her and love her only to turn her back on her.

 Both of them keep telling her that she’s not a bad person.  She hears echoes of Adora’s constant stream of reassurances in Scorpia’s, but sometimes Catra isn’t so sure.

 “Why don’t you just stop bothering with me?” she asks, low, in a rare display of honesty.

 “ I don’t know, I just like you,” Scorpia answers. When Catra’s back is turned they sound almost the same.  She suspects her eyes have that same openness to them that she always wanted to be able to show, the same honesty she couldn't return.

 “But I don’t like you,” she answers, trying to return the same courtesy, direct for once. “Not the same way.”

 Scorpia laughs, good-natured and strong.

 “I know that.”

 “Do you?” she asks, skeptical.  “I’m never going to like you back.  And you’re just okay with that?”

 “Yeah.  I told you I could do casual.  I don’t know, it might even be nice.”

 Catra supposes this should make her feel better.  Finding someone who likes her and clearly wants to be near her should help.  It should help that she’s even alright loving her without strings attached, but instead all it does is throw into relief all the ways she's still not Adora, all the ways Adora is so sharply and painfully absent.

 “Yeah, well.  Thanks, I guess.”

 “Hey, I just want you to be happy.  That makes me happy, so whatever works for you is alright with me.”

 Catra doesn’t have the heart to tell her that the thing that makes her happy isn’t attainable anymore.  Instead, she settles in and waits for sleep to take her, trying to find comfort in the warmth of another person in the bed.

 She drifts to sleep, remembering just as she falls asleep against a warmth that can’t quite replace her that this was the best part.  This golden warmth after, a hush they didn’t want to disturb and the way it was like they were the only two beings in existence for just a moment.  Quiet breath, the rumble of a purr she couldn’t stifle, a surprised and pleased giggle that mingled with it, an instant of happiness in a little corner bunk of a vast dormitory.

* * *

 

Adora would like to say her first time with Glimmer was perfect, but it would be a lie.

 Glimmer herself is perfect.  She’s always radiant, but she’s truly otherworldly at night under glittering stars and a moon that gleams sweetly but not as brightly as she can.  Adora wondered in her first days here why Glimmer would bother with having a bed as inconveniently placed as this, suspended from the ceiling. It seemed impractical and silly to her then.  But when Glimmer is here, poised over her and kissing her with an ocean of stars behind her, visible through windows so vast it looks like you could dive into them, Adora thinks this bed seems like the only fitting thing in the world.  

 It should be perfect.  It’s almost painfully beautiful, the way Glimmer smiles down at her reverently in a way Adora is certain she doesn’t deserve and traces fingertips across the planes of her face, as if trying reach out and see if she’s really real.  The way she flushes when she’s unsure, and giggles when Adora reassures her. The high, breathy little sighs Glimmer makes when her hands move between her legs, delicate and musical and sweet.

 But there’s something in the way she buries her face in the crook of Adora's neck and whimpers her name that reaches in and squeezes her heart in a way she can’t ignore.

 After, Adora sits in Glimmer’s bed, feeling as if she’s nestled into the night sky itself with her, and is helpless as tears start to spill over.

 Poor Glimmer is horrified when she realizes what’s going on and Adora wishes there was a way to make the tears disappear.  She tries to swallow the ache in her throat, but nothing makes them stop.

 “I’m sorry-” she gasps, desperately trying to wipe them away, make it seem like a momentary lapse that she’ll be over in a moment.

 “Don’t be! Are you okay?! What-”  Glimmer panics and alternates between drying tears and grasping her upper arms as if ready to whisk her away from here.

 “It’s fine, it’s not an emergency,” she tries to reassure her but she knows even as she does it that the smile she gives is faltering.

 “It’s still a big deal.  Did I-”

 “No!” she answers, perhaps a bit too loud and too desperate. “You didn’t do anything wrong.  You were perfect. Which is what’s frustrating,” she sighs. “You know, I’d really like to be able to just enjoy stuff without all this, I’m so sorry-“

 “Don’t be sorry!” Glimmer takes her hands and gently pries them away from where Adora has been digging the heels of her hands into her eyes as if it might stop the tears.  “Come here. Lie down with me and cry as long as you want and then you can talk if you want to.”

 Adora can only nod and wait until the stars that look like Glimmer’s magic stop blurring and until the feeling that her chest might split in two slowly starts to fade.

 “Better?” Glimmer smiles and the gentleness of it makes Adora wonder what she ever did to deserve any of this.

 “Yeah. Thanks.”

 “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m not really sure there’s a way to talk about it that isn’t going to be uncomfortable and embarrassing, to be honest.”

 “I promise you there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.  But you don’t have to talk if it doesn’t help.”

 Adora sighs deeply.  She doesn’t think it’s true that there’s nothing to be embarrassed about.  But she’s also so tired. Tired of carrying this weight around with her. Tired of trying to hide that, though she’s glad to have joined the rebellion, this isn’t the life she’s used to and she misses her old one sometimes.

 She supposes it's only right to tell Glimmer. It isn't fair to let her sit here and dry her tears without any idea what prompted them. Talking to Glimmer like this doesn't make any of it disappear, but it does at least make her feel less alone in it all.

 “Yeah um.  That wasn’t my first time,” she murmurs.  She can’t look at Glimmer just yet after saying it.

 “Yeah, I kinda guessed that.”

 “W-what?! You could tell?!”

 “Well, I mean, you kinda seemed like you knew what you were doing,” Glimmer explains, a brilliant flush across her cheeks.

 “Ah, thanks?”

 “You're welcome. That and it seemed like Catra wasn’t just a friend.”

 Hearing Glimmer say her name is painful, strange, and a relief all at once.  Adora knows she has a habit for trying to compartmentalize things, organize her thoughts and pains and past into easily defined boxes. Catra is part of her life from before, a part she's been trying to pretend isn't real any longer. Glimmer is part of her life now. But the way Glimmer’s mouth curls around Catra’s name, plain and matter of fact, blurs the carefully constructed illusion that it's not all connected. Adora sighs.

 “How did you know?”

 “You mention her a lot. Like more than you would if she was just your friend.”

 “I’m sorry,” Adora groans.  She tries as hard as she can to act as if she doesn't miss anything about the life she left behind. She loves her life now. Loves feeling as if she's working towards something that's right, loves her new friends, loves the girl she's nestled into bed with.  “I didn't mean to, and didn't realize. I hope I didn't make you feel-”

 Glimmer puts a gentle hand on her shoulder and the gesture stops the flurry of panicked admissions and apologies.

 “You didn't make me feel anything but awesome. Like, really awesome,” she winks and Adora can't help but laugh and wonder how Glimmer has this talent for making things seem lighter.

 “Thanks. I'm still sorry though. I do like you and I want you to know I don't like you any less at all and-”

 “I know that.”

 “Good,” she nods. “Sorry I got all weird.”

 “I think that was actually pretty normal,” Glimmer shrugs and doesn't realize the gesture just reinforces the double feeling of the whole thing, this barrage of things that make her love Glimmer at the same time that it all reminds her of Catra.

 “Is it?” she asks, unconvinced.

 “Totally. I mean, I think so? I don’t have an ex.  You’re my first,” she flushes a little and grins, looking at her with this sincerity and this, thankfully, is new.  Glimmer is unflinchingly sincere, and it takes a bravery and grit that Adora admires. She’d love to be half as brave as she is.  “So I don't know first hand. But I've heard of people being reminded of an ex like this.”

 “I don’t even know if you could call her an ex,” Adora sighs and Glimmer shakes her head.

 “She’s close enough.  And if we act or do anything even a little similar, I'd imagine that that would be enough.”

 “Yeah, I guess you two are pretty similar, now that I think about it,” she murmurs and, at first, she’s half teasing.  

 But when she thinks of them, thinks of what it would be like if they were all together in the same room, together without this horrible chasm between them, she sees it.  An unrelenting tenacity they both have that can twist into stubbornness. A penchant for fixations. Smiles that are often playful but that can turn gentle and sweet when no one else is around.  Little hints of loneliness and fear of getting left behind that few people see behind an exterior that’s either nonchalant or fiercely confident. A ferocity and righteous anger that Adora has been on the receiving end of before and wouldn’t want to test again.

 She masks a flinch when she remembers she’ll have to be on the receiving end of Catra’s anger again and she doesn’t know how many more times she’ll have to bear it before this ends.  She doesn’t want to think about what kind of end it’ll come to.

 “You have a type,” Glimmer giggles, still in a lighter and teasing mood and tickles her side.  Adora laughs with her. It's a little dampened, but there all the same.

 “Is that what it's called?“

 “Yeah. When you like people who have some similarities. Even though I refuse to believe I'm anything like her,” she teases but the way she crosses her arms, obstinate and unmoving, says differently.  Her face softens when it’s clear Adora isn’t able to return this playfulness yet. “And anyway, it makes sense to be sad. She was your first.”

 “Yeah,” she murmurs and her voice falters a little.  Glimmer settles next to her again, threading an arm under her and tucking her protectively into the crook of her neck.  At least the way she holds her isn’t the same, has its own warmth, a different way her body seems to fit well with hers.  

 “I’m sorry.  I know you miss her.”

 “Thanks.  And yeah, I do.  I’m sorry it messed up our night together.”

 “It didn’t mess up anything.  I just wish I could understand a little better.  I wish I saw the same things in her that you do.”

 “Yeah, well you haven’t exactly seen the good parts, so that’s no surprise,” Adora rolls her eyes and almost laughs and pretends for a moment that it’s just a petty rivalry and not this rift that won’t stop growing no matter how long and how hard she tries to bridge it.

 “Yeah, that’s definitely an understatement, but that’s beside the point.  The point is you’re safe now.”

 She smiles and tries to pretend that promises of safety don't sting with the knowledge that she's safe and Catra isn't.  

 They sit together in silence for another moment, watching the night sky as if hoping it might give them some answer or secret that would make all of this make sense.

 “Would it help if you told me about her?” Glimmer asks, quiet and gentle.

 Adora hesitates. Can she do that? Can she bring these people and worlds that repel each other together?

 “ I...maybe.”

 “I can't promise I'll see what you do. But I'll try.  I'll listen.”

 Adora nestles even closer to her.

 “Thank you.”

 They sit in silence for a moment. Adora watches the stars again and wonders where to begin. How can she find some place to start for a girl she doesn't remember life without?

 She supposes, though, that's the only place to start.

 “Catra and I grew up together.  We both came to the Horde as babies. There isn't a time I remember her not being a part of my life. Until now, of course, but-”

 It’s the first time she’s talked about her, really talked about her, since she left.  Once the words start it’s like something breaks in her and she can’t stop.

 She tells her about how Catra would cry when they were little and nothing could console her except crawling into Adora’s bed.  How, since then, neither of them had ever slept alone in their lives. The way they used to help each other brush their hair when their arms were still too small and clumsy to do it on their own and Catra would whine when Adora hit snags and tangles.  

 She laughs telling the story of Catra and the mouse and Glimmer giggles too.  Her voice quivers again, an unbearable ache in her throat, when she tells her how badly she wanted to protect her and how impossible Shadow Weaver made it and Glimmer tucks her closer into her.  She tells her how thrilling and terrifying and right it was when she kissed her for the first time.

 Some stories aren't really that notable, but Adora can't stop, and they stare out at the stars together as Adora recounts a lifetime of small moments that never seemed remarkable until they were gone.  

 Adora eventually sighs, letting the silence colored with memories of her and the heavy question of where she is and what she's doing and if she's alright weigh on her.

 “I just wish-” Adora starts, but she can't finish. She's spent too many nights wondering fervently how she could just get Catra to see. See that she'd be safe here. See that she's sorry for making her feel second best. See that she’s never stopped loving her and she never meant to leave her behind. See that the Horde will never mean her or anyone else anything but harm.

 “I know. Me too,” Glimmer murmurs.

 “Really?”

 “Of course. You love her. And the Horde hasn't been kind to her either.”

 “I just wish she could see it. And I don't know how long I can keep watching her stay there before I start to wonder if I don't know her like I think I do.”

 “Maybe she’ll figure it out. If you love her and haven't lost faith in her, I bet she's worth the wait.”

 “I hope so,” she closes her eyes and loops her arms around Glimmer's waist, pulling her as close as she can get her. “Thanks. I really don't deserve you.”

 “Yes you do,” she answers firmly and kisses her warmly.  Adora loves these moments, dangling in a twinkling night sky with Glimmer, kissing her in a way that makes her feel like everything is suspended and weightless, if only for just a moment.

 Adora falls asleep kissing her and dreams that they're all curled here together. She sleeps easily for once, dreaming sweetly of being nestled between Glimmer, tucked into her chest and quiet breath, and the low and gentle rumble of purring that Catra can't quite stifle as she sleeps curled behind Adora’s legs like she has since they were small, the sounds of past and present melting easily into one another in a still and peaceful night.


End file.
